


Displays of Affection

by darlingred1



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Foot Massage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 19:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10623810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingred1/pseuds/darlingred1
Summary: John’s affection is almost devastating.





	

John’s affection is almost devastating.

Before this newest development in their lives, the slow but unmistakable slide from mere friendship into more, Sherlock thought the sex would be the most startling change.

And the sex has been spectacular, true. Sherlock would even call it life-altering if he were feeling especially sentimental.

But no, it’s the affection somehow that wrecks him, as swiftly and ruthlessly as a pair of hands around his throat, leaving him dizzy and gasping, stumbling about like a newborn foal on wobbly legs.

Now, for instance. Sherlock props his feet up on John’s armchair, digging his heels into the cushion to the left of John’s hip, because…well, because he _can_ , mostly. Their chairs are close enough, Sherlock’s legs are long enough, and stretching his limbs has always been conducive to Sherlock’s thought processes. So he rests his feet on John’s chair and might have promptly forgotten about the move, except that John responds by lifting Sherlock’s socked feet one by one and depositing them in his lap.

Then, while Sherlock is blinking, startled, John proceeds to touch them. A slow, mindless stroking along the dorsum of Sherlock’s left foot followed by a delicate press of his thumb into Sherlock’s sole. Meanwhile, he scarcely shifts his attention from the pad of paper he’s been scrutinising for the last ten minutes, the one filled with his notes on their most recent case. As though he’s doing nothing remarkable, nothing he hasn’t done hundreds of times before.

“What—” Sherlock’s voice falters, embarrassingly. He clears his throat. “What are you doing?”

John looks up, his eyebrows raised. “Hm?”

Sherlock wriggles his toes exaggeratedly, which makes John smile.

“Dunno.” John presses harder and then sets his notepad aside so he can rub Sherlock’s right foot as well. His thumbs sweep down Sherlock’s arches and push into the softest bit. The most sensitive bits, too, apparently. He kneads gently and Sherlock’s legs jerk. “Just sort of…always wanted to do this, I suppose. Every time you’d put your feet up here.” He pinches Sherlock’s socks and drags the fabric away from Sherlock’s skin. “Mind if I take these off?”

Mind? Sherlock manages a mix of a head shake and a shrug, torn between appearing decisive and remaining casual, and John divests him of his socks. After depositing them on the cushion where Sherlock first propped his heels, John returns to the massage, this time devoting all his focus and both hands to rubbing Sherlock’s left arch in firm, circular motions that make Sherlock twitch again and then drop his head against the back of his chair in bliss.

“All right?” John asks, but there’s a smugness in his tone that says he knows very well how _all right_ Sherlock is.

Still, Sherlock grunts in the affirmative, just so that John has no excuse to stop.

“You can go back to whatever scheme you were coming up with in that brain of yours,” John says, switching feet. “Sorry I bothered you.”

Sherlock certainly isn’t, nor will he be able to return to…whatever he was doing that surely paled in comparison to John’s massage, the strength and confidence in John’s deceptively small hands.

Instead, he closes his eyes and thinks about the John Watson who once said to him, “I always hear ‘punch me in the face’ when you’re speaking,” but evidently harboured secret fantasies of putting Sherlock’s bare feet in his lap and touching them. The John Watson who dislikes so much as offering his hand for a polite handshake but kisses Sherlock’s hair every morning at breakfast, caresses the small of Sherlock’s back in public, and fairly glows with pleasure those lazy Sunday mornings when he’s curled up with Sherlock in bed, Rosie wide awake but nestled between them, the three of them a loving and affectionate family unit more suited for wholesome American television programmes than reality.

“Still all right?” John asks. He’s concentrating on Sherlock’s toes now, playfully sinking his fingers in the spaces between them.

“Yes,” Sherlock sighs, feeling feeble and off-balance but so devastatingly happy. “Perfect.”

 

 


End file.
